An Eye is on you. Death knells thrice, a cadence of cries, screams of the dying rising and pouring forth, echoing from the bones and rotting ligaments and tendons of the corpse that was the Mojo South Casino, and then... Nothing, but the Eye. The familiar note played out across the universe from time immemorial, always the first and never the last, eternally telling the same old tale like some Faustian pact played out on repeat, doomed to fail from inception and destined to begin anew with each passing of the sun into the void that came after, the note that the predators and creeping, crawling, clawing things of the moon time world share freely between themselves while simultaneously, secretively, selfishly hording it away from one another, guarding the very notion with the lies they make in the light and the lives they take in the dark. The note that says, “I see you,”. Both the most gratifyingly invigorating, and most chillingly terrifying note a hunter in the night can ever hear, the only difference causing the response rendered to the specific individual, and there can only ever be one response, being who happens to be the watcher, and who happens to be the watched.

Noxx hadn’t come here looking for a fight, wasn’t prepared for one either. A good hunter is always prepared, doubly so if they are hunting another predator, and this hairless ape had sliced three of his fellows to bits with razor wire just for the hell of doing it, and maybe to make cleaning up after himself a bit more time efficient, he certainly wouldn’t be going down without putting up a fight for his miserable little existence. Had there been even a few more moments before the human noticed that he was being watched, the Zetan would have ended his life with a push of a button on the side of a blaster and simply thrown what was left of him in with the rest of the garbage before moving on to the next abandoned place. Now they were both standing here like total amateurs, neither with a weapon in hand, Noxx looking at the human and the human keenly aware of it, his pausing in the midst of action having given everything away, that ancient, primal sense of being hunted in the dark by something just as dangerous as the Earthling was dinging like a bell in his lizard brain, and the Zetan knew it.

The lurking moon time terror did not slink out from the shadows, didn’t move or even make a sound beyond slow, steady, speechless breath. If Noxx drew a blaster now and the human turned, drew his own firearm and, presumably he was carrying a firearm because if he wasn’t none of this mattered and was entirely a waste of time considering, and fired the Zetan would come out the victor every time. The human had no idea exactly where this perceived threat was coming from, though he seemed to have a general idea of the doors Noxx happened to be standing just to the side of, and couldn’t possibly know that his threat was a superior lifeform that was carrying technology that would stop the projectiles fired from the ballistic weapons humans seem so fond of in mid-flight while the Zetan returned fire with concentrated bursts of gamma radiation hurling toward the human that, unbeknownst to him was capable of going through most anything a human could possibly happen to be using as armor. The human presumably knew enough to know that he would have to move against an opponent who knew where he was and was potentially aiming on him now, however, and would instead fire while scrambling to cover, leaving too much to chance. Slowly --, dreadfully, drudgingly, damningly slowly, Noxx reached for the blaster and watched, prepared to quickly get to cover if necessary.

Finger on the button Zetan blasters use as a trigger, reticule trained on the hairless ape that would soon join the others in the trash heap, and, “Blam!!” the visceral light which bathed the room fading with the sudden appearance of deafening combustion, the senses of sight and hearing momentarily rendered irrelevant in favor of chaotic imposition. Thinks he’s clever this one, but all rats are the same. Seeking out the darkened corners and using distraction to cover their panicked scurrying from the hunter. For an instant Noxx juggled with the idea of simply firing blind, how far could the monkey move in a mere moment, but, no, there was no need. Let the Earthling hide in the shadows from the monster in the dark. Casually sauntering a few feet over to the nearest row of slot machines from the double doors the Zetan had entered the room through taking advantage of the same distraction as the human no doubt had, Noxx didn’t even crouch or attempt to hide in any more notable way than to take what cover was offered to chest and legs by the standing metallic coin eaters, at least a foot of height left uncovered and peering out from behind the machines.

Why bother? There was no light in the room, nothing to cause the silhouette of the Zetan’s shoulders, neck and head to appear to be anything more than a simple part of the matching row of machines behind the one being used as cover and, perhaps more importantly, camouflage. The blaster was being held just below the peak height of the machine in front of the Zetan presumably out of sight of anyone facing the machines from the opposite direction, being chrome in finish it could theoretically provide enough of a visual signature to give Noxx away though, of course slot machines are also largely chrome and it may simply be overly cautious on the part of the alien, waiting one more moment for the human to turn on a flashlight or start shooting indiscriminately. No? Hide and seek, then? There was an overturned machine in the middle of the twenty foot or so long row of slots Noxx had taken cover in moving away from the doors from which the Zetan had entered, could probably take advantage of it. Convince the human that his pursuer was in this first row, slip over the machine to the row behind it, loop around and move to the poker tables.

It was certainly out of the way, and a misstep on some glass from a shattered beer bottle or broken-in overhead light pane could cause some awkward situations, but the human would have reason to think that the Zetan couldn’t get there without first walking out of the row toward where the body parts had been and, presumably, near to where the human still was. That is, unless he had noted the layout of the machines and tables closely enough to know that one in this row had been tipped over. How observant a hunter this glorified monkey happened to be could make a considerable difference. “Clack, clack, clack,” Noxx tapped on the hard plastic of the machine directly in front of the Zetan using the toe of the heels the alien happened to be wearing in an effort to simulate the sound of knocking without happening to have any wood around, never dropping gaze or the blaster an inch while looking for just where the trash had managed to get off to. “Housekeeping,” the voice the human would hear was nasally, in a register neither feminine nor masculine, toneless, emotionless, and altogether wrong, like something a cheap voice modulator might produce, near robotic, occasionally static sounding, almost inhuman.

Noxx heard the ratcheting coming from the dark void of the casino floor, could even have fired in the general direction of the sounds if desired, but why? Let the human turn on a light if he wanted, reveal your position to the Zetan ape, be my guest. The sudden blinding light did not catch Noxx off guard, it wasn’t as if that hadn’t been the response expected from the start, and though hardly the best shot in the known universe it was simple enough to understand that at this distance there wasn’t a chance of missing, especially since the Zetan had no need to actually hit first. “Blam!!” The blast was deafening at this range, obfuscating any sounds of the human rolling about and, if the flashlight hadn’t been left on, the rat could simply have returned to scurrying about looking for somewhere to hide while the Zetan casually sauntered about after it. The flashlight itself could be a ruse, but there wasn’t time to have stashed it atop a slot machine and gotten anywhere far enough to matter, couldn’t cover enough distance in the moment after getting to the machine and theoretically dropping the light atop it to escape the Zetan blaster at such close quarters.

If the human could see Noxx clearly in the second or two spent barrel rolling about on the floor like the monkey he is, he would notice an inexplicable silvery sheen pervading about the Zetan’s figure, like some effect added to a picture by some digital editing software but in real time, and would almost certainly notice that the figure was tall, ridiculously so, probably six seven with the four inch heels taken into consideration, wearing a skin tight alabaster latex cat suit for no apparent reason that, had it not been bathed in the same visceral glow from the lantern, and then the pervading darkness from lack thereof, as everything else in the room would have given the Zetan away in an instant from the beginning. If his eyes were particularly perceptive he might note bits of electronic scrap floating about seemingly suspended in mid-air, gunk from what remained of the hollowed out slot machine Noxx had been using as cover, as well as a single forty four round. The scrap and the bullet hadn’t been stopped by anything, or at least nothing visible, and it all seemed as if by magic to simply not be following the laws of gravity at the moment.

I have you now, silly little monkey. Hell, the flashlight is even still on, what a ballsy one this human must be. If his shot had missed anyone with a gun and half a brain could --, clunk. Some spherical piece of, well, something wacked Noxx upside the head as the Zetan was training a blaster on the foolish human’s position, something that seemed altogether familiar, like something from one of those moving picture flicks Earthlings love so much --, “Fuck,”. This thing was going to explode in a second, wasn’t it? Who the fuck just happens to walk around carrying grenades!? Would the inertia suppression kick in again this quickly? Not reliably. But the ape was right there, could end its life here, this second. Even if the flashlight was a ruse there hadn’t been enough time for the human to move far enough not to get clipped by a blaster if Noxx fired now, and getting clipped by a blaster is like getting clipped by a forty four, it’ll still knock you on your ass. “Dammit,” the Zetan dove for the overturned slot machine, certainly not out of the kill radius of the explosive but perhaps more likely to survive if there was enough time to scramble behind the row of slow machines and get down, could kill the human in a second, no reason to risk getting blown to bits.

“Oh fuck,” it was one thing to face a grenade opposite a row of slot machines from your position, even humans have survived some pretty crazy shit due to a lucky angle and a bit of cover, but one right next to you as well as another forming a concussive box of high velocity death dealing blast force? The shrapnel could be stopped without issue, hell, a big ass wildly screaming tank shell could be stopped in mid-air no problem at all with the kind of technology even Zetan civilians carried planet-side, but the inertia suppression field worked specifically against matter, and had little to no effect against energy, to include energy thrown about by high powered explosives at close range. Force field or not that would effectively liquefy the organs and tissues of anything biological. The Zetan could even pick up a grenade and use the suppression field to cause it simply not to explode, literally freezing the fast acting chemical compounds contained within the little spherical death balls in place before they managed to achieve combustion so long as it was done quickly enough, but not both grenades, not at once, not at these distances and with only a second to move.

Only one way to go, and that was up. Leaping into the air as fast as biology and desperation could carry the Zetan, Noxx instead of trying to use the suppression field to block shrapnel decided rather to cheat gravity, going up, and up, and up, seemingly weightless and if only for a moment flying toward the roof like Superman or some comic book shit without apparent rhyme or reason. The blast quite literally took the air, and all sounds carried across it, out of the room. The crumbling floor around the epicenter of the twin explosions collapsed, already structurally questionable and made to spider-web by the simultaneous blasts and rendered no longer capable of supporting the weight of the literal tons of slot machines standing atop it, all of which along with blocks and slabs of the shoddy concrete the owner had no doubt paid some city official off to get away with using during construction falling into some lobby on the first floor. Sirens would no doubt start up soon, gunshots downtown rarely drew much police attention in Vegas, but explosions in the Mojo would be heard for blocks and no doubt would scare the shit out of anyone who heard them, and for good reason. Unlike gunshots, they were too loud to be mistaken for anything but exactly what they are.

Unless the human was wearing some ear protection neither he nor the alien would hear them, of course, wouldn’t hear anything at all for a while beyond the whining drone of burst ear drums and seriously rocked jaws and inner ear bones. What complete asshole throws grenades in a twenty or thirty some foot radius to himself? This ain’t a fuckin’ video game, those things seriously fuck everything up, hasn’t this hairless ape seen Mythbusters? Noxx was pretty sure that this was the last chance to go for the human, couldn’t be certain but neither leg had much feeling in them and one or both were probably missing feet at least, lower leg bones crumpled and the tissue surrounding them mostly liquefied, gooey and unresponsive, might have a second or two left before the Zetan’s blood pressure hit the floor and shock set in along with unconsciousness. Peering down Noxx spotted the light in the void and, with the last bits of consciousness started firing down as accurately as one could while fighting to remain awake and floating upward through the air. “Pttsss-unk, Pttsss-unk, Pttsss-unk,” the Zetan blaster sounded wet, sticky, sizzling, and somewhat like one of those old fashioned pneumatic mail chutes they used to use at banks and post offices, except if the little capsules were being launched at someone’s ribs while they were simultaneously being fried on a skillet, blasts of comically green radiation flying in as tight a circle around the human’s expected position as could be managed given the circumstances.